Our Story: The Hostess and Her Guest
by elviella
Summary: A series of 121 shorts chronicling the 121 weeks Tamao and Horohoro have known, lived with, and fallen in love with each other. For 121 Theme Challenge. adopted from ShatteredLyre
1. Crossing Paths

**A/N:** I adopted the story from ShatteredLyre. You should go read her own story in this theme, about Yoh and Anna. :D By the way the story is dedicated to **ShatteredLyre**, because she's been such a great inspiration to me when it comes to fanfiction, and to **sOrbetes**, because she's so nice and she has adopted the RenPiri story of the same subject. Here's to breaking the law of Canon!

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**1. Crossing paths.**

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She probably didn't remember that, Horohoro thought some years later, but when Yoh introduced her to him, it wasn't the first time he saw her.

The first time he saw her was some days before their actual meeting. She was walking down the street, her hands clutching bags full of groceries. The way she was looking on the pavement in front of her, instead of looking around her, with that mass of pink hair falling on her face, he wouldn't have really noticed her. It was the spirits that made him notice.

Seriously, what was going on with those spirits? He was pretty sure he had never seen such obnoxious, loud-mouthed spirits before. Did they hold some kind of swear word competition? Then he realized that they must have been following the pink-haired girl, because if it weren't for them, she didn't have any reason to blush like she did. So the girl was a shaman. She certainly didn't look like one, but what you see isn't always what is real.

The girl suddenly averted her eyes, looking around her, as if worrying about someone seeing – or worse, hearing – her spirits, and trying unsuccessfully to make them shut it, without looking like a lunatic. Still looking around, she shifted the bags in her hands, and he thought that, for a moment, her gaze fell on him. Nice, now she'd think he was some random stranger staring at her. However, she didn't seem to notice that. She continued walking, and then she took the next turn. He shrugged and yawned, putting his hands on his pockets and kicking a pebble before getting up from the bench he was sitting on.

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"And this is Tamao. She's, uh, my dad's apprentice. And she cooks well. Extremely well!"

He was surprised to meet that girl again, now her hair better combed, and wearing a white kimono. Her spirits were there, too, as weird and loud-mouthed as he remembered them. The girl, uh, Tamao, blushed at Yoh's compliment.

"Nice to meet you, Horohoro-san." She bowed politely. "I-I… thank y-you, Yoh-sama."

"Nice to meet you, too", he said being polite for the first time in his life. There was something genuine in the girl's politeness that made him want to be polite in reverse, too. "No need for '-san'. No-one ever says that anyway." He shrugged, not really caring for anything except for the fact that there was food mentioned. "It's lunch time, isn't it?" He told Yoh, forgetting his momentary manners.

"Yes, sure! Come on."

He smiled at the girl cheerfully before following Yoh. She smiled (not bowed) back.

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In fact, he was wrong. Tamao _did_ remember him. She was a prophetess after all. As she walked down that street, she could feel that there was a person there whose path would cross hers soon. Not only would it cross it, but for a long time, the two would go on together. For a time so long, that she couldn't even see when or if it would end. When she looked around, trying to locate the source of the premonition, she saw far too many people for her to be sure which was the one the feeling referred to. The one that looked the most unusual of all the people around her, was a blue-haired boy on the other side of the road. She gazed at him for a moment, but afraid that she would be caught staring, she lowered her eyes again and left.

When Yoh-sama introduced his friend to her, she was immediately reminded of the boy she had seen. Even though she didn't know if he was the one who she was supposed to cross paths with, she knew that he, premonition or not, would have an impact on her life, just because was nice to her.

She never told him all this. It would turn his head even more.

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A/N: At last, I did this! Now I just have to finish the second chapter of Montage, Decoupage, and Organic Coffee. Which, by the way, you should read.(yees, shameless plug.) And, uh, study. Cool.


	2. First Moments

**A/N.: **Still dedicated to** ShatteredLyre **and **sOrbetes**. =)

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_**2. First moments.**_

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Meeting new people is certainly weird, especially for someone shy and with a stuttering problem. In Tamao's case, the fact that in three weeks she had met more people than she had met in the almost whole twelve years of her life wasn't helping at all, nor did the fact that most of those people were shamans – or spirits.

However, she still passed most of her time in the kitchen, seeing all those new people only once in a while – during each meal, that is, or when she had to run some errands for Anna. Except – except for that blue-haired friend of Yoh's, who seemed to practically adore food and places where he could find her. This made her hideaway not a hideaway anymore, because there was almost always someone there, whether it was Anna-sama, or the guy with the weird hair and the appetite for sushi, or Horohoro-san.

The latter was the invader of her kingdom now – he came running through the door, slipped behind some cupboards, looked around, and, waving hastily at Tamao, he decided to stay there.

Puzzled, she got up and approached the cupboards.

"Horohoro-san?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Shhhhh!" he placed a finger on his lips. "Pirika is after me! And I told you, no "-san"!

They both turned as stomping footsteps approached.

"You never saw me!" the boy whispered, pushing her back to her seat and cowering behind the cupboard.

Several seconds later, a very annoyed Ainu girl entered the kitchen. She looked around, and, upon spotting Tamao and her cookies' dough, she asked, "Hey, sorry for annoying you, but have you seen my brother?".

Tamao felt her brow twitch as she swallowed before lying.

"No, he hasn't passed from here."

"Oh. Um, thanks. And, um, sorry again. See you around."

Pirika hurried out of the kitchen to continue her quest of finding – and probably also punishing – her brother.

Said brother appeared from behind his hiding place, first only his hair and eyes, checking if his dangerous little sister had left, and then the whole of him.

"Hey, thanks a ton for not giving me away. The Great Spirit knows what she'd do to me if she found me. I wouldn't want you to be scarred for life by the sight of my terrible beating! I owe you one!"

"Oh, it's o-okay…"

"Thanks anyway. Hey, is this for cookies?" he asked giddily, noticing her bowl.

"Y-Yes, chocolate ones…"

"Awesome! Tell me when they're ready. Heheh, actually I guess I'll figure that out anyway. Nothing that has to do with food escapes me! So, I'll be seeing you around!"

And with that, he left, leaving Tamao and her dough alone. _"How in the name of the Great Spirit can everyone be so outgoing?"_ she wondered, as she started to put the remaining ingredients in her bowl.

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**A/N.: **I DON'T KNOW. This was definetely very hard to write. Actually, it was very hard to think what should happen here, but quite fun to write it. But I still don't really like it, I might revise later. At least I gathered up some courage to study Algebra. This will help me pull off 'til tomorrow.  
I would be grateful if you could inform me of any grammatical mistakes or syntactic ones or generally if you have any opinion about this, or even some idea, I'd love to hear ..um... read it. Yup, yup. Go hit the review button now. :3


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